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Monday, August 31, 2009

I pulled up in the Kiss 'n Drive lane to get Clay from kindergarten today. As I shifted into park, I saw his teacher walk him toward the car. Uh oh, I thought. That's never a good sign. She approached my car and told me, "I just wanted to let you know that Clay punched a girl in the face today.""I had money on next Wednesday for his first visit to the principal's office." "Ugh, Clayton, it's only the 4th day of school!"

She went on to explain that a girl had been bugging him by touching his arm (where he has a rug burn courtesy of big brother Austin. Don't ask.) According to his teacher, Clay did tell her to stop touching him several times, but the girl continued despite Clay's requests. When she did it again, he hauled off and smacked her.

I'm happy that the "use your words" and "if someone is bothering you, ask them to stop" lessons sunk in, but clearly I failed to follow up with the "if they won't listen to you, tell your teacher instead of slugging them" lesson. That has since been remedied. For good measure, I also added the "don't bite them, don't kick them, don't call them names, don't body slam them, don't trip them, don't grab their toy away from them, and don't spit on them" lessons for good measure. You know, because some kids (cough cough Austin and Clayton) like to exploit loopholes.

Not that he was right or anything...but sometimes I think that playground justice has it's place. Hoping that karma will come around and smack the other guy in the face it pretty hard :P I agree, he shouldn't have smacked her in the face. Don't get me wrong. But, oh, this kind of thing is hard! My big, fat bully neighbor kid purposely ran over my kid with his bike and stuffed our cat in the mailbox. My OTHER kid started chasing him (they were all around Clay's age--kindergarten and 1st grade--well, except for the cat) and somehow kicked up a twig that lodged in the bully's bike chain and derailed it. He kind of crashed and burned. And TRULY, the twig wasn't tossed or thrown (I was a witness). Good example of playground karma, if you ask me...no, I didn't laugh. At least not right out on the street where people could see me!

Oh there are plenty of loop holes still there, lets see how long it is before he finds them.I solved problem of teacher approaching me in school yard by waiting at the car with my youngest. A letter or a phone call was so much easier to handle. I started doing that the afternoon the teacher approached us mums and I overheard someone mutter behind me - 10 to 1 I know who she wants to speak to and the 3 mums next to her went no way it's a sure thing!

If the teacher knew she was doing it, why did she stop the girl?! She deserved to be hit. :) You can only take so long before you snap. But girls can be very mena sometimes. My daughter is a stinker to my son. We tell him ALL the time not to hit girls, but every now and then.... WHACK!! She deserves it.

@goldnrod: "I honestly can't remember what the consequences were, but I never bit anyone again!"

I sure hope that no-one bothered you again, either, ;-).

Honestly, I think, Clay did well. Yeah, okay, he _could_ have told his teacher first, but at least he repeatedly asked the girl to stop. I mean, hey, she was really annoying. I also like that the teacher took notice of his side of the story!

P.S.: I was just approached by a neighbor telling me about my boy and his friends hanging out in their backyard -- and playing with matches they found. Oh joy! And, oh no, we didn't have the fire department around just a few months back... You'd think that some lessons just catch on.

It could have been worse...when I was in first grade in a combo first and second grade classroom, one of the 2nd grade boys kept saying he was going to cut one of my braids off. He even went as far as to hold scissors near my head. Well he got too close one too many times with the scissors actually opened with one of my braids in them and I spun around and hit him in the head with my lunchbox. My lunchbox was metal! I cracked his head open! Oops! I don't think he needed stitches or anything...and he never tried to cut my hair off again either! Yes, I got in trouble...but secretly I think my parents were glad I finally stood up for myself!

We continue to stress the "use your words, walk away, get a teacher" mantra...esp. with our youngest who is much quicker to use his hands to make his point!

I was just at a block party and one of our neighbors proceeded to tell us about some report cards that had been "unearthed" by her mother-in-law. She went on to tell us that her husband who is now 45 would comment on everything the teacher said, say cruel things to other students, and even kicked a parent in the rearend at one point. He justified this kicking incident by telling us that the parent would still walk her sixth grader to class each day and that she deserved it. Well it is all funny NOW. The DIL asked the MIL how she managed and the MIL said that she took one day at a time with her DS. He is actually a very successful business person now.

Thanks for the reminder . . . my little one is going into Kindergarten next week and he could use a few reminders about hitting people.

You need to add: don't pull their hair, don't poke them in the eye, in fact, don't poke them at all, don't do karate on them, don't headbutt them, and don't stab them with a pencil or any other object.

I have a child who needs to have absolutely every option (and non-option) spelled out, too. ;)

Good for Clay. I guess he shouldn't have smacked her, but he did try to solve the problem the right way first. And girls tend to pick on boys because they know that boys tend to cut them some slack because they are girls. I agree with the playground karma comment. I hope Clay didn't get punished too much!

Sorry but she deserved it. If the teacher watched her annoying him, him asking her to stop, and then him getting angry enough to slap her then why is he the one who is at fault? Teacher should have stopped it from progressing that far.LOL though, today is my sons first day, waiting on that phonecall.

I just have to tell you, my son who is 3 has been through 3 daycares. The first he repeatedly hit and spit on girls exclaiming "I don't like the ladies!" The second was a near promising effort on my behalf only to discover that for Tristan (my son) anyone else even near his age range is an absolute insult to who he is as a 3 year old. lol. One day he randomly picked out a kid, picked up a large plastic toy cash register and chucked it at the other kids face. Dead on. Right smack dab on the kids nose sending him to the emergency room with a not only bleeding nose, but a broken nose at that. (I think Tristan needs contact sports!). The third daycare was the last straw for me. According to the director who I was not so fond of anyway, Tristan was a "bad influence" on the other kids. What I didn't understand was how my sweet wonderful son, could be so mean and a bad influence?! PREPOSTEROUS!! Apparently the daycare was so concerned with his behavior, they brought in a "specialist" without my consent. I sued them and took Tristan to a private sitter. It was a long haul to get him in and out of these facilities but we've finally found one private sitter who is wonderful with him and really what he needed. I have been through the talk with him, "the talk" has proven effective for this sitter and the kids she watches aside from my son, but we'll see next year when he starts kindergarten. I'm sure it will be a brand new experience.

Oh, and to add - my daughter (Kayla - age 7) who was in first grade last year had "the talk" as well. Apparently a kid was annoying her and she turned around, hauled off and punched him in the stomach. The teacher, just like Clay's walked her to me after school and then explained the situation. Kayla was told to use her words not her fist. :)

My kids are not typically this aggressive but I figure they take after me a little as far as not putting up with "crap" lol. This year however, much better behavior from both and I was more concerned about Kayla's behavior in second grade (5 days in and she LOVES IT!!) than Tristans. Much luck and blessings with Clay.

So what did the teacher say to the little brat that thought it was funny to continuously cause him pain? Sorry that would have been my first question. No punching is not right but neither is having to sit there and let someone hurt you.

We have to have the "please don't talk about butts, farts, boobs, burps, boody, any part of your body, anything that comes out of or goes into your body, and please do not say penis at school unless it hurts" talk almost every morning.I'm pretty sure I have the only child in the world who actually cries if he farts in the car and you roll your window down because he wants to smell it. Boys are gross.

Ok, so I get that he should not be punching a child, but if the teacher knew he had asked this child to stop several times, then why did she not step in before it got to that point? She HAD to have known it was going to get worse, there is no way she could have been sitting there thinking humm, 10 bucks says he just sits there and takes this. Geez.